Mauritania's parliament passes law banning slavery

[wilberhum]

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritania's parliament has passed a law making slavery a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison after years of lobbying by rights groups in the Saharan Islamic state.

"Parliamentary deputies have passed a law which criminalizes and sets sanctions against the practice of slavery," Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, speaker of the National Assembly and himself a descendant of freed slaves, said in a statement on Thursday.

Although banned by decree since 1981, rights groups say hundreds of thousands of Mauritanians are still enslaved, the highest proportion in a population anywhere in the world.

Herding camels or goats in the sun-blasted dunes of the Sahara, or serving hot mint tea to guests in the richly carpeted villas of the capital Nouakchott, slaves are passed on as family chattels from generation to generation.

Some of the light-skinned elite which has long ruled the former French colony straddling black and Arab West Africa deny slavery exists. But campaigners say the master-slave relationship is branded into the minds of all Mauritanians.

Questions about slavery have in the past drawn anger, mistrust or silence leading to a cloak of fear and secrecy which has made it difficult to bring cases of slavery to light, let alone to court.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0989868220070809

 

[wilberhum]

Now I thought this was interesting.

Especially in the light that some one said Islam took the lead against slavery.

 

[ISLAMASWEENEY]

This is a great day for Mauritania it shows that slavery IS a crime and will not be tolerated anywhere in the world.

 

[Amadeus85]

Quite late i think. BTW as i know the slavery in Saudi Arabia was banned in 70's last century.

 

[wilberhum]

Quite late i think. BTW as i know the slavery in Saudi Arabia was banned in 70's last century.

I know. That was why I was so shocked when some one said Islam took the lead against slavery.

 

[Bittersteel]

Especially in the light that some one said Islam took the lead against slavery.

Muslims took.they just lost the lead.

 

[beespreeteam]

Now I thought this was interesting.

Especially in the light that some one said Islam took the lead against slavery.

We actually ban the restraints and oppression of slavery. For example, Bilal was allowed to give Adhan. In your case, you simply 'abolish it', but there's still wide spread slavery. For example, countries that export huge amounts of coffee etc are still the poorest in the world. I was just reading in the news paper about how many thousands of women are trafficked in for the olympics and forced to pleasure men against their own will etc etc...

 

[wilberhum]

We actually ban the restraints and oppression of slavery. For example, Bilal was allowed to give Adhan. In your case, you simply 'abolish it', but there's still wide spread slavery. For example, countries that export huge amounts of coffee etc are still the poorest in the world. I was just reading in the news paper about how many thousands of women are trafficked in for the olympics and forced to pleasure men against their own will etc etc...

Looks like not very many Lessened.

 

[ISLAMASWEENEY]

Yes But Mauritania No Disrespect To It Is A Bit Behind Times.

 

[Kittygyal]

^ You know a lot for a 15yr old dude! :muddlehea

 

[omar_2133]

It's a bit late for this. I thought they would have totally eradicated the "European-style" slave trade by now...

 

[Amadeus85]

It's a bit late for this. I thought they would have totally eradicated the "European-style" slave trade by now...

What you mean by european- style slave trade? Dont you know that Arabs, Turks and Tatars also had slaves.It is estimated that they owned about 1 million of white european slaves through all the history.Not to mention black slaves from Africa.The biggest centre of arab slave trade was in eastern coast of Africa.

 

[wilberhum]

http://www.arabslavetrade.com/

LEGACY AND DIFFERENCE

One of the biggest differences between Arab slaving and European slaving was that slaves were drawn from all racial groups and they were rarely used as a means of crop production; slaves were not the economic engine behind Arab economies. Arab slavery generally lacked large droves of sugar plantations where slaves toiled to the crack of a whip in the hot sun . Unlike the European trade in enslaved Africans the physical remnants of this trade are very hard to measure. There are no Ghettos, mental institutions or prisons holding African people. Many women stolen from Africa were stolen to serve the infamous Arabian harems; their children were thus born free to Arab fathers and thus would have been heirs to wealth and status, fully and equally assimilated into the population. Many African people thus rose to great stations by virtue of their Arab fathers. The infamous eunuchs were infertile, and the other men who were enslaved would have gradually married non-African women, hence facilitating the absorption of African culture and lineage into an Arab one. The contrasting differences between racial definitions on the Arabian continent as oppose to Europe assist in blending the majority of Africans stolen from Africa into the general population of Arabia. However, in the West there was no transcending “racial stigmas.”

Economic Slavery, as in the Americas, is always the most devestating. :thumbs_do